


A Long, Involved Swear, Using Every Forbidden Word Possible

by Naphorism



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics), Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Ace Chemicals, Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - The Raven Cycle Fusion, Anger, Barry Allen Isn't The Flash, Barry Allen is a Little Shit, Bruce Wayne Has Issues, Bruce Wayne Needs Help, Bruce Wayne is Bad at Feelings, Bruce Wayne is Not Batman, Bruce Wayne is So Done, Canonical Character Death, Clark Kent Isn't Superman, Clark Kent is So Done, Damian Wayne is Bat, Damian Wayne is Not Robin, Damian Wayne is So Done, Denial of Feelings, Enemies to Lovers, Gen, Hatred, High School, Implied Sexual Content, Jack Napier is Not Joker (DCU), Joker (DCU) Has Issues, Joker (DCU) Loves Bruce Wayne, M/M, Pining, Rants, Rivalry, Street Racing, Swearing, Yes you read that right, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:33:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23285575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naphorism/pseuds/Naphorism
Summary: Bruce Wayne hates Jack Napier, and Jack Napier hates him. It's as simple as that. They fight, they race, and they hate each other's guts. There's nothing more to it. Really. Bruce will cuss J out, right here, right now, just to prove it.
Relationships: Barry Allen & Bruce Wayne, Barry Allen & Bruce Wayne & Clark Kent, Barry Allen & Clark Kent, Batman/Joker (DCU), Bruce Wayne & Damian Wayne, Bruce Wayne/Jack Napier, Clark Kent & Bruce Wayne, Joker (DCU)/Bruce Wayne
Comments: 12
Kudos: 61





	A Long, Involved Swear, Using Every Forbidden Word Possible

**Author's Note:**

> ronan and k from trc were basically already high school bruce and j, so take some dead parents, explosions, racing, and emotionally stunted, possibly sociopathic teenagers who are obsessed with one another  
> just a high school au inspired by trc, understanding trc isn't necessary  
> title is a quote from trc

The sound of Bruce slamming the door shut caused Clark to look up from his notebook blearily and blink over the top of his glasses in the sedate fashion available to only the incredibly sleep-deprived. It was well past the point at which they should have been asleep, considering that they both had school the next morning. Or later that morning, as it were. Noticing the prominent bruises on Bruce’s knuckles and cheekbone even through the darkness of the room, Clark frowned. “Napier?”

“Fucking _Napier_ ,” Bruce growled, throwing back his hood, ripping off his leather jacket, and hurling it at the closed front door as though he had something to prove.

As Bruce stormed past Clark's perch at his antique desk, Clark’s nostrils were assaulted with the stench of pure booze wafting off of Bruce. “Christ, Wayne,” Clark sighed, glancing at Bruce with a simultaneously disapproving and worried look that was usually found exclusively on the faces of mothers. “Don’t tell me you’ve been driving. You smell like you’ve bathed in vodka.”

Bruce studiously ignored Clark, electing instead to stomp into the bathroom and retrieve a beer bottle from the mini fridge they kept plugged in next to the toilet. Bruce audibly bumped into the walls several times due to darkness and drunkenness, muttering increasingly creativecompound curses each time. After a particularly large crash Clark could only hope that nothing important, including Bruce himself, had been damaged.

“We need an actual fuckin’ kitchen in this hellhole,” Bruce mumbled as he marched back into the main room of their absurd apartment and collapsed on the couch, using the sharp edge of the coffee table to pry the cap off of his beer.

“It’s not a hellhole…” Clark trailed off, looking around at the cavernous expanses of Ace Chemicals. He thought living in a disused factory was extremely cool.

Clark knew Bruce didn’t agree that living in Ace Chemicals was cool. He just needed somewhere to live that wasn’t steeped in the memory of his father’s blood on the pavement, his skull in splinters, and his mother’s eyes, closed forever. Where every moment wasn’t a combination of the horrors he had witnessed and fond memories of the home that his waking nightmares had tarnished forever.

“The Bunsen burner works just fine for any cooking we need to do. And it’s not as though we need a bigger fridge than that,” Clark stated decisively.

Scoffing, Bruce threw his bottle cap at Clark’s head with surprising accuracy and took a huge swig of cheap beer.

“Besides, you’re deflecting. Did you seriously race Napier? When you’re this - this -” Clark struggled for a word. “Intoxicated?”

Bruce let out what might have been quantified as a giggle if it hadn’t held such an undertone of belligerence. “ _Shitfaced_ , Kent. Abso-fuckin’-lutely blasted.”

“Yes, I had noticed,” Clark muttered in complete disapproval, with a slight undertone of pity. “You still haven’t answered my question, though.”

Bruce grunted in question, head lolling against the back of the couch.

Rolling his eyes, Clark asked, “ _Have you been driving?_ ”

“Kent, what do I _do_ with Napier?” Bruce asked in a tone that made Clark sound like the idiot.

“Race. Fight. Race. Beat him up. Race. Let him goad you into trying his mystery drugs. Race. Exchange sexually charged insults. Race,” Clark counted off on his fingers.

“Fuck you,” Bruce growled, whipping his head around to face Clark and give him a look of unadulterated loathing. He then added under his breath, “And they’re not mystery drugs.”

“Oh? Enlighten me.”

“His Joker Venoms have had a variety of names,” Bruce stated with a sneer. “Smylex, happy gas, giggle gas, joker juice, laughing toxin, laugh-a-loads, perma-smile, smiley gas…”

“Well then,” Clark said, blinking at Bruce’s prone form on the couch. “You seem to have them memorised.”

“Thinks he’s creative, coming up with nicknames for homemade drugs in his spare time,” Bruce growled. “J’s such an _asshole._ So fuckin’ full of himself, thinks he’s _clever_ for being a destructive nihilistic sociopath who ruins other people’s lives. He’ll never contribute more to the world than molotov cocktails and brain damage through drug use. Fuckin’ insane _clown._ ” He gulped down beer angrily.

“You have to admit that he is good at getting under your skin.”

“Don’t make me hit you,” Bruce growled.

“You know I can take you,” Clark warned. “You’re used to fighting Napier.”

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean,” Bruce hissed in his most menacing voice, clenching the fist not occupied by a beer bottle. A weakly clotted scab on his first knuckle split open, oozing blood lazily.

Clark ignored Bruce’s knuckle. You had to be able to ignore a lot to be Bruce Wayne’s best friend.

“Jack Napier is underfed and over-drugged. He’s slowed down by his need to laugh after every hit he takes, and doesn’t have much mass to use to his advantage,” Clark pointed out calmly. “He only has his pure manic energy going for him. You’re not used to someone who presents a physical challenge, only a psychological one.”

“He is a wriggly little bastard,” Bruce agreed, ignoring every part of Clark’s statement he didn’t like.

“Against someone your size, with your history in boxing? The only thing stopping you from winning within the first five seconds of a fight with him is the clumsiness alcohol lends you.”

“I could pound him into the dirt,” Bruce muttered to himself, licking blood off his knuckles thoughtfully. “Scrawny fucker’s only powered by Joker Mad Energy Drinks and acid.”

“Or _maybe_ ,” Barry said, suddenly appearing next to the couch with a shit-eating grin on his face, “wanting to pound him into the dirt is _why_ you pull your punches.”

“Barry…” Clark warned.

Bruce threw his now-empty beer at Barry, who got out of the way just in time to avoid the bottle.

Barry moved to the other side the couch, looking at Bruce’s shattered bottle against the concrete floor. “Whoa!” He said, equal parts scared and entertained. Bruce might have been way bigger than him, but come on. He would never be able to stop finding teasing his friends funny.

“You’re full of shit,” Bruce seethed. “You don’t know anything.”

“You and… _the Joker_ ,” Clark paused for a moment as though he thought he was above Napier’s branding and was slightly put off by having used it, “are a bit like two sides of the same coin. There’s something about him that sets you off, and that might be because you see yourself in him. Or you like him more than you'll admit to yourself.”

Clark stuck his hands out in a placating gesture when Bruce growled. “I said _might_ be. Just try not to let him get to you. He and his friends - he and his gang are dangerous.”

“How does he even have such a loyal pack of dogs?” Bruce asked, clearly rhetorical as he continued ranting. “How he manages to be so _charismatic_ when he’s such a _dick_ is beyond all known laws of science.”

Rolling his eyes, Clark said, “Almost like a certain Wayne I know.”

“We’re not at all similar,” Bruce hissed. “I _hate_ him.”

“That you do,” Clark agreed, looking back down at his notebook, ready to tune out. He knew what was coming. Every time Bruce got drunk or fought Napier, it was the same old story. And Bruce got drunk and fought Napier _a lot_.

“Why’s he got his hair that colour? Obnoxious. No one fuckin’ dyes their hair _neon green_ an’ never changes it in four years,” Bruce slurred. “Got old in the first month of freshman year, swear to fuck. Can’t avoid seeing his douchey snowball beacon-ass head in the halls. ‘S like a disease.”

Barry patted Bruce’s head comfortingly with the air of someone who had heard every complaint there was to hear many, many times before.

“An’ if you ever tell him it’s stupid he asks if _you wanna see the carpet, too, it matches_.” Bruce delivered the last part of his sentence in what must have been his impression of J: cracking as though with withheld laughter, and infused with an accent that might have been partly Jersey but sounded mostly put on. “What a smarmy dickbag.”

“Good impression of his accent,” Barry complimented oh-so-helpfully. He was telling the truth, but also fully aware that he was being an enabler. Everyone present who had not been drinking like a sailor on death row could hear it in his voice.

“The fuck’s up with that, anyway,” grumbled Bruce. “Sure, he’s a mobster Jersey trash piece of shit. But that accent isn’t all Jersey. Fuckweasel must fake an accent to sound even more fuckin’ feral than he is. No one sounds like that.”

“Yes, his accent sounds almost as put on as your impression of it,” Clark said distractedly, now mostly focused on trying to pay attention to _anything_ that wasn’t a completely fucked up Bruce ranting about his main vice. Ignoring Bruce didn't make him stop, in Clark's experience, but listening certainly didn't either. Ignoring was an infinitely more enjoyable option when he had already heard Bruce deliver the same _I hate Jack Napier's guts_ _and here, let me describe the precise colour of his stunningly green eyes_ rant more times than he could count.

“His fuckin’ _car_ ,” Bruce groaned, throwing a hand over his eyes and barreling on. “He could afford anything he wants. He runs this entire town’s criminal underworld despite being a _teenager_. But oh no, he’s just _gotta_ keep the Mitsubishi he spray-painted purple when he was fourteen, like an absolute cunt!”

“He’s gotta stay on-brand, Bruce. Would you stop driving the charcoal BMW?” Barry grinned.

"It was my dad's." Bruce glared at Barry. “Besides, I only work in black.”

“Charcoal’s dark grey,” Clark pointed out calmly.

“Fuck you, Kent. Sometimes I work in very dark grey.”

“You could stand to switch things up a bit too, Wayne. Self-awareness might look good on you.” Clark gave up on trying to ignore Bruce’s wallowing and turned to face the couch once more. “Maybe your car drives Napier up the wall as much as his drives you up the wall.”

Bruce scoffed, “At least I don’t have neon green rims. Or knife decals. Or _vanity plates_.”

“The rims and decals do match his hair though!” Barry said delightedly.

“Oh, sorry, _two_ sets of vanity plates.” Bruce rolled his eyes, ignoring Barry.

The factory was silent but for the sound of cars passing by in the distance until Clark reluctantly asked, “Two sets? Since when?”

“I don’t fuckin’ know. He’s got the JOKER plates and the HAHAHA plates.” Bruce shrugged. “Since always.”

“I’ve only ever seen the JOKER ones.”

“Sticks to JOKER at school so everyone knows who he is. Uses both on the streets.”

“He did always strike me as rather vain,” Clark admitted, taking his glasses off and rubbing his eyes. “Two sets of vanity plates, twice the vanity.”

“Asshole,” Bruce mumbled, looking small.

“That he is,” Clark murmured, looking exhausted. “That he is."

Bruce took this as his cue to continue ranting. “I hate his blinding douchebag grins, his eyesore clothing colour choices, his excessively pale and bony… Hands... Face… Arms... Knees... Excessively pale and bony..." He paused, gathering his beer-muddled thoughts, eventually coming up with, “ _Self_ …”

“You really are obsessed with him, even if you just hate him,” Barry said thoughtfully.

“Shut your _fucking mouth_.”

“Don't worry,” Clark said, sighing, having evidently given up on ignoring or reasoning with Bruce for the night. “He’s obsessed with you too. He can’t even pass you in the hall without taunting you into shoving him against the nearest hard surface.”

“You two fucking _suck_.” Bruce staggered to his feet and crossed his arms. “I’m going to spend time with the only roommate in this Godforsaken factory who gives a shit about my feelings.” He glared up into the endless darkness of the rafters. “Damian!”

Damian flew down from the lofty heights of Ace Chemicals’ rafters leisurely, giving Bruce a look that was probably unimpressed in bat body language. It seemed to say _you’re pathetic, but you’re also my dad, so I guess I gotta live with it._ He gripped his freaky little feet around the finger Bruce held out for him, wrapping his delicate wings around himself and seeming to settle into sleep.

“Goodnight,” Bruce announced with finality. He staggered his way into his bedroom, slamming the door shut behind him with the hand not occupied with Damian. A moment later, ear shattering techno-punk started pounding out from under his closed door.

Clark groaned.

“You want me to ask him to turn it off? You have a headache.” Barry had a weird way of knowing when people were feeling bad.

“No. I’d rather hear this than the other option.”

Barry snickered. “How much you wanna bet he thinks he’s gotten so _angry_ that he’s popped a boner?”

Cringing, Clark said, “I’d rather not think about it,” in a helpless tone of voice. After a moment of silence, he added, “Somewhere on the other side of town Napier’s friends are having this exact same conversation, and that’s a better joke than any _Joker_ ’s ever told.”

“Nah.” Barry shook his head. “They all know Joker loves Bruce Wayne.”

“Including Napier?” Clark asked warily. “You think?”

“Say what you want about Jack Napier, but at least he has the balls to admit he’s in love.”

There was a pregnant pause, then Clark whispered, somewhat sadly, “That’s the one thing Wayne will _never_ have in common with Napier.”

**Author's Note:**

> you know what they say: what's a rival if not a crush you're mad about having?  
> thanks for reading, kudos and comments are always immensely appreciated  
> ps: joker mad energy drinks are a real thing. make of that what you will


End file.
